~ Food, Life, Love

Tag Archives: vegan

New apartment, new roommates, new recipes, same love of baking. Last night my roommates and I christened our apartment with baked goods. We have a plethora of baking goods, seriously it’s almost ridiculous. Literally four bags of different kinds of flour, this does not include the oat bran, rice four and barley flour too. Since it was such a joyous occasion we definitely wanted to do cupcakes. Due to the hot weather we wanted to keep them light, but still fun and delicious. I guess we were secretly craving breakfast because we decided to make Strawberry Maple Pancake Cupcakes. We modified a cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Takeover The World, we added maple syrup, a little nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice to the batter. When the batter was poured in the tins I swirled in a little more maple syrup to make a crunchy sweet top.

When they came out I carved a cone into the top to add a filling.

We decided to do a scoop of Vegan cream cheese and topped that with homemade strawberry preserves.Extra topped with strawberries and it was delicious!

Not only was I successful this week in actually cooking an entire meal by myself, but I even managed to astound two devoted meat eaters (and by that I mean that they do not eat tofu, seitan, tempeh, or many vegetables) with my tofu veggies couscous. They ate their veggies, and asked for seconds! Stove tops, seasonings, and the burning points of oils usually escape me. I am baker. I use a formula or come up with my own formula that has rules and results that I understand. Cooking on the other hand is far too much guesswork for me, and by that I mean that I am totally not creative enough for all that. On Sunday evening I was at my dear friends T’s house, my usual haunt. We had just walked home from an afternoon spent playing exhausting games of volleyball at the local gay bar, which is how every post brunch sunday should be spent, and we needed food. Stat. Though I often treat the residents of T’s house with some of my baked specialties (stolen-banana Banana Bread, Five-finger discount Apple Crsip, and Sinfully Swirl Cupcakes) I wanted to feed these friends who oblige to have me over every night and never hesitate to share the Three Buck Chuck, so I vowed to cook dinner. T had prepressed and drained tofu in the fridge, baby ‘bellas and canned tomatoes. (we desperately need to make a TJ’s trip). I proved to be both innovative and resourceful. I squeezed the juice from the can of tomtoes and used that to cook couscous. I marinated the tofu in the leftover juice with some tarragon and, of course, cayenne pepper. I panfried the tofu with absolutely delicious sesame oil, and stirred in mushrooms, onions and garlic. When the couscous was light and fluffy and folded in tomatoes and more tarragon ( T’s garden is plentiful with tarragon).

Last night I made my slowly becoming Infamous Eggplant Stacks for my mother’s birthday dinner. It wasn’t my best eggplant stack. I made the sauce from freshly picked tomatoes I bought at the farmer’s market and it was delicious but I quickly ran out. It boiled down so much that I should have used the rest of the tomatoes. That’s one of my biggest problems as a cook, sometimes I overestimate how much food will be made. I’d rather have the opposite problem.

Anyway, this wasn’t the main event. The main event were Julia’s Vegan Tiramisu cupcakes. I thought the center, which was Kahlua and coffee grounds was going to be disgusting, like eating the dredges of your coffee cup. But they weren’t. Somehow it got lost in the goodness of the rest of it.

This wasn’t even what I meant to write about tonight. What I really wanted to discuss was how even a simple meal of leftover vegetables and pantry raiding can turn out amazingly delicious with a good mixture of herbs and spices and creativity. Because I had some breadcrumbs left over from last night I decided to bread the sweet potato slices I was going to roast. Mix in tarragon, red pepper, black pepper, salt and some garlic powder.

I also made some vegetarian baked beans with sauteed onions and more of the same herbs and spices. These, along with freshly made basmati rice, were so good I could hardly believe it was just something I threw together because I was hungry but the pantry was close to bare. Really, this meal was so cheap I could have it for a month and not spend more than $25. It was also so good that I could want to eat it for a month. That is a good thing because I am about to be poor and still have to eat something.

By the way, have you ever noticed that the really delicious indigenous foods from other countries emerged from the poorest citizens, who had to make do with what they could, and had to learn how to make it taste the best it could? These are my new role models.

Past Posts This Month

Past Posts This Month

Who We Are

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.